Orchestral Performance - Malvern 2004

Conductor Peter Donohoe

Peter Donohoe was the winner of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. His piano playing has been described as being "in a class of his own, an interpreter with a quite extraordinary feeling for musical phrasing, a 'sculptor' of the piano; his relentlessly clear representation of thematic conflicts brings the drama to life." (Detlef Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, 1993).

He appears regularly with the major London and British regional orchestras and across Europe with the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, WDR Köln, the Berlin Komische Oper, the ORF, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Stockholm Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Czech Philharmonic and the Maggio Musicale in Florence. He recently gave a series of concerts in Spain and Portugal with The Philharmonia and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Peter has performed annually at the BBC Proms and appeared at the Edinburgh Festival for six consecutive years. He has played at the renowned French piano festival La Roque D'Antheron, and in Germany at the Festival of the Ruhr and at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. He plays regularly in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. In the United States he has appeared many times with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Dallas Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra. He has made many fine recordings and won awards for his recordings of the Liszt Sonata (Grand Prix International du Disque Liszt) and Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto (Gramophone Concerto Award).

He is establishing a reputation as a conductor, and particularly in his interpretations of Russian works such as the ones he has selected for this NSSO course. He is also a major champion of modern English music.

NSSO is very grateful to Peter Donohoe for the time he has taken to work patiently with the orchestra and the inspiration he has been for our members.